Easiest answer of them all, Alexander Isak | OneFootball

The 2024/25 Premier League season is fast approaching for every Newcastle United fan.

Only hours now until United host Southampton and it all kicks off again.

An ideal time to get a snapshot of views from Newcastle United fans on how they think things are going.

So we sent out various sets of questions to a number of regular/irregular contributors to The Mag.

Next up we have Muzza B:

Three words to describe how you currently feel as a Newcastle fan?

Optimistic, Excited, Nervous (like 99% of fans I hope for the best but always fear we’ll fall down at some point)

Three words to describe Eddie Howe?

Cool as…

What do you think Eddie Howe’s first choice eleven will be this coming season, when all current squad are fit?

Pope, Tino, Schar, Botman, Hall, Bruno, Tonali, Joelinton, Gordon, Isak, New RW

Your thoughts on the signings made this summer?

This is a tough one with three weeks to go before the window closes.

I strongly believe that the team in my previous answer is top four quality, the issue we have is the squad depth, which cost us massively last season.

A big issue is buying players who are either world class and can displace one of our existing starters, OR squad players who can be impact subs or injury replacements. It’s a balancing act how we do that just now, still quite early in the squad overhaul required.

Everyone associated with the club knows we really need two players – a right centre-back and a right winger, so far we have bought neither, which is a bit disappointing but not a disaster, as there are two weeks left to get them in.

The players we have brought in, fit the “Squad Players” function, Kelly is a Dummett upgrade by a mile and will replace BDB after this season as back up LCB/LB. Osula is 3rd choice striker once Wilson is fit, not a bad player to come off the bench or start early Carabao cup matches, as we had no 3rd choice striker last season it’s a decent step forward.

If we can get the RCB and RW players we need, then it will transform our season.

Predict the top five in the Premier League (in order) and which three clubs will be relegated.

Man City, Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool, Man U.

To go down I reckon Ipswich, Southampton and Everton, as they are bound to lose more points for financial issues.

Name a Newcastle player who you think could be a massive surprise success this season, doing far better than most fans expect.

Will Osula is my surprise package.

I thought he looked the part on Saturday and is a beast at 6’3 with pace as well, I can see him pushing Wilson all the way for the 2nd striker role coming off the bench to give Isak a rest and starting in cup ties.

I’ve put a bet on him scoring 10+ goals this season.

Hand on heart, where do you think Newcastle will finish in the 2024/25 Premier League?

Top four is a massive target so we can get back in the Champions League, it won’t be easy but with the couple of additions mentioned previously, I think we’d get there.

What would be your ideal future stadium if these two were the options – St James’ Park increased to 60,000, or brand new 80,000 stadium just a few hundred yards up the road where Leazes Park and/or Castle Leazes is?

I have to admit that I have totally changed my mind on this one.

Having gone to SJP for 56 years it is ingrained in my bones, but I think a £1BN+ state of the art stadium still in the city centre, the Castle Leazes site ticks all the right boxes just makes sense.

Imagine walking past SJP in 10 years time (only another 400 yards) to the new stadium to watch us win the title for the 3rd year running.

How much of a shock was it that Newcastle United had to sell Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh this summer to cover a £50m+ PSR shortfall?

FFP/PSR is the spawn of the devil in my eyes, brought in to lock the septic six onto the gravy train for the rest of time.

I’m sure at some point it will be challenged and abolished or replaced with something new.

I would like to comment on this summer’s issues though, I was embarrassed and mortified by some of the hysterical negativity around what happened with us.

Firstly, anyone who thinks the board didn’t know our PSR position at least six months in advance is delusional. We are now run by a proper group of world class business leaders who knew exactly what the situation was in January when we failed to sell Miggy and Trippier.

The big issue a lot of people missed was that they only had 16 days in June to fix it, 16 days to find buyers for fringe players, not starting players, negotiate the sale, deal with agents and persuade a player under contract to leave the club.

They didn’t have 12 months or even 6 months, they had 16 days!! This was obvious when Minteh refused to go to France for £40m, we eventually had to sell him to Brighton for £7m less than the French offer, we then had Elliott Anderson who didn’t want to leave but agreed reluctantly (and probably for a whopping pay rise) to join Forest. An unbelievable result financially, our joint highest sale and 3rd highest sale in such a short time window.

Which Newcastle United player sale would have hurt the most if they’d gone this summer?

Easiest answer of them all, Alexander Isak.

Yes, we have Bruno, who is a superstar, Wor Flash is right up there as well, but Ice Cold Alex for me is genuinely in the top five strikers in the world right now and he’s only 24, imagine how good he’s going to be!!!

Would you like to draw Sunderland again in one of the cups this coming season?

Come on? How many of us actually think the mackems are anything of a threat to our team/squad?

I’d happily play them anywhere on the planet, knowing we will win, but please God let them get drawn to come to SJP, it would be out of this world on our patch.

Next three seasons, would you rather finish top four all three seasons BUT win nothing, or finish mid-table all three seasons AND win the League Cup in one of the three?

I’m 63 now and desperate to win a domestic trophy in my lifetime, however, the bigger picture is that Champions League is where you need to be for many reasons, mostly financial, but also to attract the next level of world class players we need, to achieve our chairman’s stated ambition from the Amazon video.

When asked where does he want us to be, remember the glint in his eye and the little smile before calmly raising his index finger “Number One”. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean number one in the North East or even in England, as with everything PIF invest in, he meant number one in World Football.

In order to achieve that we need Champions League football every season and the trophies will follow by the bucketload, to quote Martin Luther King: “I might not get there with you but we will get to the Promised Land.” Like him, I too “Have a Dream.”

I couldn’t wait for last season to end, the injuries were beyond anyone’s imagination and the added disaster of Tonali’s suspension made the situation even worse.

Champions league away at Dortmund with young Miley starting and young kids coming off the bench was heartbreaking after a 20 year wait to get back on the big stage.

All of that is making me wildly optimistic for this season, a “normal” amount of injuries, several new squad players and a couple of starters and we’re going to be pretty special. A massive thing for me will be going to every game home or away genuinely believing that we can win, I can’t remember that ever happening before.

How worried are you about PSR/FFP affecting Newcastle United over the course of the next decade?

As mentioned previously, I despise FFP/PSR because it is rooted in corruption, it’s only purpose is to maintain the cartel at the top and to prevent anyone else gatecrashing the party.

That said, I’m a bit disappointed that we haven’t spent a couple of million getting the best sports lawyers in the land to find ways of getting around some of the rules, surely we can get some mega sponsorship deals or sell naming rights or SOMETHING!!

We have the richest owners in the world that genuinely want to invest in the club and they aren’t allowed to, surely that can’t be in football’s best interests?

Newcastle start the season with Southampton (Home), Bournemouth (Away), Spurs (Home), Wolves (Away) and Fulham (Away), what would you see as success in these opening five Premier League matches?

Minimum 10 points.

We have the easiest opening five games this season as opposed to the hardest five games last season. I’m hoping to have 13 points on the board and be at the top of the pile because although the Champions League spots won’t be won in the first five games, they can certainly be lost. If only five points from those opening fixtures, it’s a mountain to climb to get up there.

Chelsea are spending incredible amounts of money under these current owners and appear to have a rule book all of their own in terms of what they are able/allowed to do. What do you predict will happen to Chelsea, will it all suddenly collapse like a deck of cards or will they simply continue doing as they are and potentially competitive on the pitch as well?

There are lots of reasons to hate Chelsea (getting my head kicked in inside their ground before the 6-0 defeat in 1979(?) being one of them) but surely the biggest one for most fans, not just ours, is the way these rules just don’t seem to apply to them.

£1.5Bn spent in the past three years on players and now having almost 50 senior professionals on their books is totally insane. Hopefully at some point it comes back to bite them.

When did you begin actively supporting Newcastle United/realise you were an NUFC fan? How would you describe the differences between now and then? Do you think it is better supporting Newcastle United now (and being a football fan in general), or was it better back when it all started for you?

I was an innocent seven-year-old in 1968 when I first witnessed the hallowed turf from the Leazes Wing Paddock, sitting on a concrete barrier.

In my first season I was at every Fairs Cup match and even 56 years later can recall so much of the sounds, smells and sights of that magnificent season.

Unfortunately, since then it has been a rocky rollercoaster of a ride with very few peaks and far too many troughs, I genuinely believe that our club is set for great things in the future and it starts on Saturday against Southampton.

As one regular contributor in the Mag says “the future’s so bright you’ll need sunglasses.”

Which player from your early days supporting Newcastle United would you most like to see in the NUFC 2024/25 team?

This is a tough choice between Tony Green and Supermac but for the sheer joy he brought me as a kid, it has to be Supermac.